Tell them I'm alive: Burns

Latest News

LANCE HORNBY, QMI Agency

Pat Burns still has a lot of fight in him and showed it Friday in a phone call to correct reports of his death.

"Tell them I'm alive," Burns told TSN from Magog, Que. "I come to Quebec to spend some time with my family and they say I'm dead. I'm not dead, far (expletive) from it."

The report was in fact a misunderstanding that originated at Maple Leafs training camp. Senior advisor Cliff Fletcher came out of the dressing room looking sorrowful and told a group of reporters that his favourite coach with the Leafs from his GM days, had passed away. Burns has terminal cancer and had flown back to his home in Quebec from Florida in the past couple of days.

An extremely sensitive man who has always been cautious with such announcements, Fletcher said he had received "a call from a friend" with the news, not revealing a name. Media that tweeted and phoned in the story had no reason to doubt Fletcher's word.